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    Underground, Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube
    Underground, Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube
    Underground, Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube
    Ebook418 pages12 hours

    Underground, Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube

    By Andrew Martin

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Why is the Victoria Line so hot? What is an Electrical Multiple Unit? Is it really possible to ride from King's Cross to King's Cross on the Circle line?

    The London Underground is the oldest, most sprawling and illogical metropolitan transport system in the world, the result of a series of botch-jobs and improvisations.Yet it transports over one billion passengers every year - and this figure is rising. It is iconic, recognised the world over, and loved and despised by Londoners in equal measure.

    Blending reportage, humour and personal encounters, Andrew Martin embarks on a wonderfully engaging social history of London's underground railway system (which despite its name, is in fact fifty-five per cent overground). Underground, Overground is a highly enjoyable, witty and informative history of everything you need to know about the Tube.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherProfile Books
    Release dateApr 26, 2012
    ISBN9781847658074
    Underground, Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube
    Author

    Andrew Martin

    Andrew Martin grew up in Yorkshire. After qualifying as a barrister, he won The Spectator Young Writer of the Year Award, 1988. Since, he has written for The Guardian, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, the Independent and Granta, among many other publications. His columns have appeared in the Independent on Sunday and the New Statesman. His Jim Stringer novels – railway thrillers – have been published by Faber and Faber since 2002.

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    Reviews for Underground, Overground

    3.5/5

    36 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a light overview of the history of the tube from someone who carries his anorak over his arm rather than wearing it.

      He looks into the early development of the tube, and some of the significant characters who made the Tube what it is today. But what makes this book something other than another Tube history is the way he weaves in his own journeys to the narrative.

      I enjoyed it, but couldn't give it five stars as it was missing that extra something.
    • 2/5
      Numerous books have been written chronicling the history of the London Underground. This is evident from Andrew Martin's contribution to the genre, as he quotes frequently from several of them, interweaving between their deployment his own observations about the state of "Tube" today. He is well equipped for this latter task; the son of a railway man (as he informs his readers in his introduction and periodically reminds them throughout the book) and the author of a series of detective novels set on the rails, he wrote a column in the late 1990s on the Tube for the magazine of one of London's many newspapers. In effect the book represents a blending of his aesthetic commentary and secondary research into a friendly account of London's iconic transport system.

      The resulting book is by turns entertaining and informative, with little nuggets of trivia that often are missing from more serious accounts. His affection for his subject is obvious; what is less so is the intended audience for his book. Martin tells a history of the Underground familiar to anyone with even a passing command of the history of his subject, yet his book presumes a familiarity with both the metropolis and the various Underground lines built over the decades to serve it — a presumption underscored by the otherwise unaccountable absence of maps. In this respect it might be best suited for a longtime rider familiar with the intricacies of the Underground today who wants some historical context to explain some of the system's many oddities and quirks. Though such an audience may be a narrow one (and they can add a star to my rating here), they will undoubtedly find Martin's book an agreeable companion as they go clacking along its rails or zipping beneath the city it serves.
    • 4/5
      An entertaining and enjoyable history of London Underground. If you like the Tube or interested in underground trains, read it.
    • 3/5
      Chatty, anecdotal, entertaining. The temptation to add 'Wombling Free' is hard to resist.
    • 4/5
      A readable history of the Tube, but I was expecting more "trivia" rather than simply a history.
    • 3/5
      Like the author of this book, I've always been a little bit obsessed with the Tube, and with London itself. My seven-year-old self was in awe of a city whose residents rode trains underground, and even now, I always prefer to get on the Tube than catch a boring old bus when I'm in big London town. For me, the idea of this book seemed perfect - how did it come about? To whose mind did this tangled map of lines and stations make sense? Whilst not quite disappointed, I find myself not quite satisfied by this one - it is rather geeky in places, and I would have liked to have seen more social history about how the Tube affected Londoners' lives. And, for the record, the Northern line is not that bad - the District line is worse!
    • 3/5
      A very in depth account of the history of the London Underground. The book has some interesting technical descriptions about building the tunnels and stations, but does get a bit anoraky in places. One for the enthusiast I think

    Book preview

    Underground, Overground - Andrew Martin

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